Thaman Gets Another Shot, But Pressure Is Massive

For years now, music maestro Thaman has been one of the busiest and most successful composers in Telugu cinema. From mass elevations to emotional melodies, he has delivered chartbuster albums for almost every top Telugu hero. But when it comes to Bollywood, the story has been completely different.

While Thaman composed the full Hindi album, Ustaad Bhagat Singh’s Hindi version, Baby John in 2024, only one song clicked, which took for Keerthy Suresh’s glamour revamping. And his background scores for movies like Simbba and Singham Again have worked in parts only. So now, for the third time, he is getting another huge opportunity in Hindi cinema. He is officially scoring music for Salman Khan’s upcoming film with director Vamshi Paidipally, produced by Dil Raju.

On paper, this looks like a deadly commercial combination. Salman Khan’s mass image, Vamshi’s emotional-commercial storytelling, and Dil Raju’s production scale together make this one of the most-awaited Bollywood projects in the South circles too. But the pressure on Thaman is extremely high. His previous Hindi outings never really created the impact expected from him. Despite dominating the Telugu charts, he could not establish the same musical craze in Bollywood.

Vamshi Paidipally and Thaman earlier delivered one of the most commercially successful albums with Varisu. Whatever criticism the film received, the songs became massive chartbusters. Tracks like Ranjithame created tremendous buzz across languages. Can they repeat that magic again? We have to wait and watch.